


impossible year(s)

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Desert, Other, Stress, Vague Biblical Reference, Vague thoughts of death/suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:05:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5919592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurent wanders the desert for five years before anyone finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	impossible year(s)

**Author's Note:**

> Fire Emblem Fates is coming out in the next few weeks and lately I've been thinking of Laurent, my son who I love dearly, and how he spent so much time alone in the desert. How awful.
> 
> Title taken from Panic at the Disco's song "Impossible Year."

Before the desert, there is ruin. There is chaos and destruction, there is jagged rubble and the ever present stench of rot in the air. There are muffled cries and tense goodbyes and then light, light, light— so bright it feels like he is being seared from the inside out. Perhaps he is. Perhaps it is not homes or castles that are burning anymore, but him instead, and when they look for him, all they will find is his mother's hat. It would be fitting.

They've punched a hole in time, but it feels as though something else has punched a hole through him. He feels hollowed out and stretched thin all at once.

Laurent lands on the dunes with a soft thump, his robes spread out around him. And then there is nothing.

It is not that he falls unconscious, but after years of war, shouting in the midst of battle and the crackling hiss of fire always present in the background, the desert is strangely empty of sound. Barren, in all meanings of the word.

The sand shifts silently under his cloak when he struggles to sit upright. His lungs strain against the stress of taking in fresh air that hasn't yet been polluted by smoke. The air is so dry it feels as though the very liquid from his body is being dragged out of his lungs with each breath, though he knows that is not very likely.

Out of everything she could have left behind, he is suddenly very grateful to have his mother's hat indeed. As tattered and old as it is, its wide brim keeps the worst of the sun's heat off his face.

Still, he has read about the desert. The sun is scalding and unforgiving, and those unfamiliar with its dangers tend to perish in the heat. His body, already fatigued from being thrown across time and space, would be no match for the desert's perils unaided.

However, even when he twists and strains his eyes over the horizon, he cannot see any other signs of life among the dunes. He has no idea where, or more importantly, _when_ he is.

Laurent picks himself up and starts walking.

\----------

The desert is like an ocean, he thinks, though he had only seen the ocean an handful of times and had not stopped to admire the bloody water then either. Vast, endless, the dunes in the distance take up the visage of golden waves. As far as he knows, they stretch on for miles.

His thick robes, though good for shielding his skin, are ill suited for the climate. Within an hour he finds it hard to swallow, and by the time four hours pass, he is walking almost directly into the sun and he almost cannot bear the heat of it.

Eventually, the sun sinks lower and lower, taking the stifling air with it, and Laurent's weary limbs thank the gods until he recalls that some deserts reach freezing point at night. Then the setting sun appears more foreboding than kind.

He thinks he could manage a weak fire spell if he tried, but he has nothing to light and keeping the flame going would drain him more than anything else. He has no choice but to lie down and hope no scorpions find him nuisance.

When the sun rises the next morning, Laurent miraculously rises as well. With shaking, frozen limbs, he scrambles to his feet and stumbles toward the first beams of light as they climb over the horizon. His lips are cracked. "Dry" is too kind a word to describe how he feels. A soft breeze tickles his face as he stands, and a few grains of sand roll past his feet. Somehow he does not fall apart with them.

He walks.

\----------

He remembers, dimly, a tale of a prophet and his followers. He cannot remember the god the story was about, but he recalls the prophet led the followers through the desert, fleeing persecution. The followers had been unfaithful, however, and as punishment they were cursed to wander the desert for forty years, ever lost.

Forty years is a long time, he muses. He wonders if he has made any gods angry as of late.

If Laurent were less devoted to science, perhaps he would dwell on it a bit longer. As it is, the sand is very dry and the sun is very hot. He walks.

\----------

He is on the brink of exhaustion when he collapses outside of what he is sure is an hallucination caused by his dying brain and dehydration.

The village gate is real, however, and when Laurent is dragged inside by the first human he has seen in two days, he is not even awake to witness it. Someone takes extra care to make sure they don't lose his hat. He is grateful.

He stays unconscious for a full day until he wakes up the next morning to some cobbler's daughter spooning water into his mouth. He nearly chokes on it, but the water tastes so delicious after days of nothing that he drinks the rest in between coughs.

It is only through the kindness of strangers that he is alive. Laurent cannot recall the last time he had seen unfamiliar faces so warm.

The villages does not have much to give him, but that mostly has to do with how run down their well is in the center of town. Laurent is not used to carpentry, but he is used to hard labor and with a little extra help of some others in the oasis, he manages to fix the well structure and leave notes for the villagers in case it should ever happen again.

The whole process takes a week. He helps in a few other areas as well— shepherding camels, gathering fruit off cacti, a few other odd chores that some are too old or too young to do properly— grateful such strangers had taken pity on a wanderer such as him and unwilling to leave until he is sure they are in no dire straits.

They let him go with gentle smiles and a borrowed knapsack full of provisions. One of the town's elders tell him of a village a few days south that may hold more news of the outside world. He has been told the year and he knows he is much, much too early, that his has flown farther off-track than he had expected, but some part of him still hopes there is news of a masked hero also wandering the sands or rumors of a swordsman with a twitching hand. Whispers of a girl who is really a dragon, possibly, or of a boy who is really a rabbit. 

Laurent is far, far from where he needs to be, and though it would be detrimental for others to be in the same proverbial boat, he cannot help but wonder.

Around day two of his journey south, he thinks he has made a mistake. He has gone too far west or east and will miss his mark entirely. The sun is his only guide, and even then it is an unfriendly one. One of the women of the village had shown him how to rub juice on his sunburn to soothe the skin, and he makes use of that knowledge as much as he can.

The village elder said it would be a four day journey across the desert and Laurent's legs cannot help but go faster, faster, faster against the resisting grip of the sands.

It would be a four day journey, the elder said. Even so, he makes it in three.

\----------

The southern oasis holds no news of any cheery Pegasus riders or nervous archers, but they do have a library.

The ramshackle hut that holds all the village's books is nothing compared to the wealth of knowledge lying in wait in Ylisstol castle, but it is more than he has ever had at his fingertips at once. The future had not been kind to anything flammable. It would be foolish to squander the opportunity, he thinks. He sets to work.

\----------

Theoretically, Lucina could have landed even earlier in time than he did and already established contact with the Chrom of this world.

Theoretically, his mother is still alive somewhere, a Shepherd in the prince's garrison, and all he has to do is find her and use her ring to prove his lineage.

Theoretically, he could leave the desert any time he wanted.

"I'll find you," Lucina had said, voice firm, standing tall, despite the dirt and blood and unidentifiable stains on her clothes. She had made sure to look them all in the eye at least once. "No matter what time we all end up in, I will make sure things don't turn out the way they did here, and _I will find you_."

She had been so full of conviction then. The untarnished world was a huge place, full of roadblocks other than Risen and Fell Dragons, but somehow Laurent had believed her.

Theoretically, Lucina has already landed in this time and is now looking for them.

Theoretically, Lucina is still tumbling through the bright light of time and the cosmos.

He has heard, though he has never been told directly, that when a child is lost at the market, they should stay in one place so their parents can find them again. It is advice for children.

Laurent stays.

\----------

During year one, he tries to make the most of his time. He makes maps of all the nearby villages and studies the local wildlife, as little as there is, to see what makes some species more suitable for harsh conditions than others. He keeps journals upon journals tucked away in his knapsack and when they get to be too heavy to carry all at once, he stops by the oasis that originally took pity on him for rest. He keeps moving.

Year two is long, and year three goes much the same. They drag and drag, and Laurent wonders if he will die before he goes mad. Everything is sun baked yellow and cracked from the dryness of the air.

Around year four, Laurent again thinks of the story of the unfaithful followers cursed to wander the desert. Forty years is a long time, he thinks again. He does not know if he could make it one more year by himself, nonetheless another thirty-seven.

Year five.

It is not the land of the rising dead that so plagues his nightmares still, but Laurent wonders if he made the right choice in coming back. Time slips by like the sands in a windstorm, and Lucina's _"I will find you"_ still ring in his ears at night. Surely enough time has passed to do so. And yet he still tucks the brim of his mother's hat over his eyes when the sun rises and waits.

Laurent searches for a rumored mirage oasis and half-heartedly tries not to let the sands swallow him whole. It's possible may have simply traded one unfortunate fate for another.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/ if anyone was curious. Feel free to hmu there if you want or leave a comment below.


End file.
